An Integrative Approach for Indoor Environment Quality Assessment of Large Glazed Air-conditioned Airport Terminal in the Tropics

The indoor environment quality in large glazed space such as airport terminals affects its users in many ways. The indoor environment quality assessment of such a building was conducted using measurement and computer modelling on the objective variables that define the environment quality and energy consumption and questionnaire survey on the subjective judgement on the indoor comfort.
The inner surface temperature over glazed roof were recorded as 56oC due to high level solar penetration, even when the indoor air temperatures over the floor level remain stable within the standard comfort zone. This rose the mean radiant temperature and was considered as main cause for indoor discomfort revealed by the survey. The survey found the employees to be slightly uncomfortable and dissatisfied, particularly in summer. The predicted annual cooling loads were very high compared against the energy benchmarking. This study confirms that the large proportion of glazed roof is the cause for both overheating and thermal discomfort even with excessive use of the cooling system.